Marlins Designate Jacob Turner For Assignment

The Marlins have designated right-hander Jacob Turner for assignment, the club announced. Lefty Brian Flynn has been recalled to take his spot on the active roster.

Needless to say, this comes as something of a surprise. Turner, 23, was at one point considered by some to be one of the game’s twenty best prospects. And while he has not produced good bottom-line results this year (5.97 ERA), Turner has been victimized by a .368 BABIP. And he has thrown just 264 total big league innings over parts of the last four seasons.

Notably, he has improved significantly this year in several respects: his 6.2 K/9 and 2.6 BB/9 are improvements over last year, even though he’s allowed more earned runs, and he has even bumped up his groundball rate to 51.3%. Indeed, Turner owns a 4.01 FIP, 3.93 xFIP, and 3.98 SIERA on the season — all career-low marks, and all seemingly in line with a player of his age and former repute. His fastball velocity is on the rise.

Turner’s situation will certainly warrant a close eye. He will, of course, need to pass through waivers to be dealt. One wonders whether Miami perhaps already has its eye on some sort of trade with a high waiver-priority club. (The Rockies, followed by the Cubs, Phillies, and Diamondbacks, currently lead the NL “reverse standings.”) It is hard to imagine the club simply letting him go: not only was Turner the key piece in the deal that sent Anibal Sanchez and Omar Infante to the Tigers two years ago (which also included Flynn), but he came into the season with just 1.033 years of service to his credit and so will not even be arb-eligible until 2016.

It is worth noting that Turner is already out of options and is playing on a MLB contract, which he signed after being chosen ninth overall in the 2009 draft. That deal comes with a $1MM option for next year. It gave Turner the right to opt out of that salary and file for arbitration if eligible after this season, but he won’t have enough service time to qualify. Nevertheless, the lack of an available option does limit his market somewhat, as a team would need to be willing to use both a 40-man and an active roster spot (or try to slip him through outright waivers at an opportune moment).

The fact is, players like Turner have value, even if they have not lived up to expectations. He reached the big leagues at a young age, and it seems that several teams would be willing to hold an active roster spot for him to make a run at harnessing his potential (while reaping the benefits of his low salary and team control). Just last year, the Astros shipped a very similar player in Jordan Lyles — former top prospect, decent peripherals, poor results — to the Rockies (along with Brandon Barnes) to acquire two full seasons of a solid, reasonably affordable MLB center fielder in Dexter Fowler.

On the other hand, Turner is something of an extraneous part for Miami, which has other advanced young arms in its system. (One contributing factor to that assessment, however, is that the team recently added Jarred Cosart via trade.) The club seems to be willing to give up at least some future value to improve its chances in 2014 — the Fish sit six and a half back in the NL East — and it could be that the assessment was already made that he would not warrant a roster spot for the rest of the way or over the offseason. (Of course, if that truly were the case, it would have seemed more likely for Turner to be moved a few days ago.)

No guys. Outright waivers are different, if that’s what they’re using here. Only special waivers in Aug and Sept go through two leagues separately. For 10 months, waivers go from worst record to best. Prior season’s record is used until May 1st each year.

I could be wrong but since he hasn’t reached six years of service, he wouldn’t be on ‘revocable waivers’ – just normal waivers. Meaning he can be traded to any team but if they don’t reach an agreement he can decline the assignment, making him a minor league free agent. Then he can sign with any team and still be controlled.

I believe you’re allowed to “pull him back” once. If you place a player on waivers a second time he can’t be recalled. Only I’m unclear what the specific impact of that is, if a team claims the second time and no deal gets worked out then what happens? I’ve been reading Jayson Starks know your waiver rules and its giving me more questions.

Oh, but I thought DFA was just a precursor to being placed on waivers, which must happen for a player to be traded, and the same rules we pay attention to in August for trades are in effect year round on DFA players?

1) the Marlins can (if they haven’t already) put him on revocable waivers while he is in DFA limbo — and they must do that if they wish to deal him

2) as usual, they would be able to trade him to either the claiming team with the highest priority or any team if he clears (which seems unlikely)

3) they can still pull him back at that point, but the clock will keep ticking on the DFA and they will ultimately need to put him on outright waivers — which, I believe, have the same priority order at this point, so the only risk a claiming team would take by not consummating a deal would be that they rise in the standings and drop in priority … if it reaches that point, the Marlins would simply lose him if he is claimed

All this leads me to wonder (wonder/speculate/make up in my own mind/this is all fantasy) if perhaps they already have something worked out. Miami is 6.5 games out of the division, 5.5 from the Wild Card, and could still be looking to pick up a veteran arm.

If a deal was lined up and they thought the claim would work out — certain Rockies pitcher comes to mind as a hypothetical possibility — then perhaps the DFA is just a procedural mechanism to clear a roster spot while everything is pulled together.

I will be disappointed if the Cubs don’t consider trying to claim Turner. If I remember right they were targeting him in a trade that was around Matt Garza. No risk, high reward claim if they can get him

It looks like they kept or traded for all of the wrong prospects. Here are other top 100 prospects for the Mariners in that time frame; Montero, Hultzen, Ackley, Smoak, Moore, Halman, Triunfel, Aumont, Clement, Nageotte, Blackley, Lopez, Snelling, Anderson, Perez and Christianson.

There was someone who ranked players based on where they landed on BA’s list.
If they never achieved 1.50 or better WAR in a season they were considered a bust.
If they achieved a 1.50 to 2.49 WAR in a season it was a success and if they achieved a 2.50 WAR or better in a season they were considered a major success.

Players who hit #1 to #10 status on BA had a 45.0% bust rate, a 55% success rate(and a 35.1% major success rate).
Players who hit #11 to #20 status on BA had a 50.0% bust rate, a 50.0% success rate(and a 30.7% major success rate).

Once you get outside the top-20 it drops drastically. Players in the #21 to #30 had a 70.0% bust rate, a 30.0% success rate(and a 16.4% major success rate)

Pitchers were much more likely to bust, have a lower success and major success rate than position players.

Pitchers in the top-20 had a 60% bust rate, while position players in the top-20 had a 40% bust rate. The overall bust rate for pitchers outside the top-20 was 75-80%.

I believe this was done off of a decade of BA top-100 lists as of maybe 2007 or 2008.

It is a great article that I feel should almost be mandatory reading for anyone on this site. The work was done by Scott McKinney for royals review and goes to show you just how fickle prospects really are.

With the rash of injuries I wouldn’t be opposed for the Yankees to claim him if he gets to them on the waiver wire. He’s still young and maybe Rothchild could find something that’ll help. At worst he could be totally bomb and the Yankees could replace him when Phelps or Pineda (doubt it) return.

The Rockies have first crack at him. This is a franchise that had a guy with a nearly 8.00 ERA in AAA start three games for the big league club this season. If they don’t claim him, heads need to roll.

Even if he had no future utility, they could probably justify adding him just to provide a warm body the rest of the way. Under the circumstances, I think they absolutely should claim him. Nice opportunity for Colorado.